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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps open borders should be treated like inter-national economic agreements. Have open borders with countries who reciprocate open borders with you. So, if Canada will let all and any Americans in, we reciprocate. If Mexico opens borders with Haiti, then Haiti should open its borders to Mexico, etc.

I don't think it can work unilaterally, it has to be bilateral and multilateral --eventually having universally open borders --but given the displeasure with the soft equivalent, global economics "globalization", I don't see this happening any sooner.

If "globalization" --which in theory would eventually bring equilibrium to economic effects-- has such resistance and suffers from criticism from the left and right, wile being a "soft" form of migration, imagine how people would receive "hard' worldwide migration. I don't see it being received well, if done unilaterally.

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See http://openborders.info/blog/immigration-trade-and-reciproci... . In particular:

"Now, the analogy between trade and migration is far from perfect. But I think that on the issue of reciprocity, the economists’ objection to mercantilist-style thinking in the trade context can be transferred to the migration context. In other words, unilateral open immigration generates net benefits, even if other countries don’t follow suit. Thinking of immigration law in reciprocity terms is fundamentally misguided."

I think it's not misguided as a way to obtain traction. If, say, Singapore unilaterally opened its borders, it would be overwhelmed by people from ID, PH, TH, etc. But, if they slowly opened borders bilaterally with say, MY, their economies would have time to adjust, as they adjust they can then extend their borders to VN, let's say. It gives economies a way to adjust without the economic shakeout disrupting the locals too much.

Look at Mexico, it clamors for the US to open its borders to Mexico, if they believed open borders were beneficial and without repercussions, they would open their borders to Guatemala and Honduras, among others -but they don't because of labor protectionism (ethnically they are very similar, so it's not so much ethnic antagonism0.

Sure, that's reasonable. This is a specific "slippery slope to open borders" as discussed here: http://openborders.info/blog/slippery-slopes-to-open-borders... . The relevant "slippery slope" is:

"Gradual expansion and merging of free migration zones: For instance, the EU is a free migration zone for European countries, and it is gradually adding countries. Suppose the United States and Canada created their own free migration zone, Southeast Asian countries created their own free migration zone, and a few free migration zones emerged in Africa and Latin America (South America). The US-Canada free migration zone could, after some time, add Mexico and the Caribbean Islands, and then merge with the South American free migration zone. The European free migration zone could eventually merge with the new unified American migration zone. Over time, as the threat of terrorism, and the subjective sense of the threat, receded more and more into the past, the Gulf states could merge with the European free migration zone. And so on, until eventually the whole world would be a free migration zone."

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